


Though Far Away (We're Still the Same)

by Heronfem



Series: Works for Others [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Romantic Fluff, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 02:44:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14740559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heronfem/pseuds/Heronfem
Summary: Sulahn Lavellan adjusts to her new life with the Chargers after the end of the Inquisition; a short snapshot of life.





	Though Far Away (We're Still the Same)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NilesDaughter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NilesDaughter/gifts).



Sulahn Lavellan wakes to a sturdy arm around her waist and the smell of campfire cooking. For a moment she's jarred and confused by her surroundings, but Krem shifts behind her with a growl and buries his face against her back and all is right with the world again. She sighs quietly, resting her arm on his, and lets the world right itself as sleep shucks itself off. 

They're in a tent, a small but sturdy one, meant for traveling over long stay. All that's within it is them and their packs, their worldly belongings condensed down to bags or kept safe in a quiet safety box in Josephine's care. Sulahn is among the Chargers now, staying indefinitely, the Inquisition disbanded and a good portion of her left arm gone. But in return, she has a life again, a life that she likes, because it means that she can wake up with Krem at her side and no concerns but the day ahead of her. A quiet life, until the times when they're called on to fight, and even then it's not as though they're facing Corypheus. The Chargers have grown well trained at taking down literally everything that Thedas has to offer, and she intends to keep with them lest they get rusty at it.

Sulahn rolls over, watching Krem sleep, and can't quite help but smile. 

Life is good again.

She rises quietly, dresses in silence. Her clothes are specially tailored to only really need the one hand to do up, and she does up the buttons with little issue. She slips from the tent into the camp proper, and is greeted by a damp but blessedly not raining Storm Coast morning. Most of the Chargers are up, though Bull is nowhere to be seen, and Rocky and Grim are likely still abed. The newer crew barely notice her, scurrying about taking down tents and saddling mounts as needed. The company is up and moving, a day of travel ahead of them, but they can afford to be slower to rise today when they covered the ground so well the day before. Sulahn makes her way to the fire, dropping down next to Skinner. 

“Morning,” she says, yawning, and Skinner grunts. 

Dalish, from her other side, waves and smiles. “We're having pancakes this morning!”

“Were I not a happily taken woman, I'd kiss you,” Sulahn tells her, to peals of laughter.

The pancakes cook well and fast, and Sulahn's gathered her dishes to get ready to eat when Krem appears from their tent, dressed for the day but obviously still sleepy. He makes a beeline to her, and Sulahn laughs as he wraps his arms around her and buries his face against her shoulder. 

“Someone's still sleepy,” she teases, and he groans. But he's smiling when he pulls back, and her heart swells a little. 

“Hello, beautiful,” Krem murmurs, and Sulahn smiles as she turns her head for a morning kiss. 

“Good morning, handsome.” 

From across the fire, Stitches calls, “Get a room!” to mixed laughter. Krem makes a rude gesture in their general direction and kisses her again, smiling against her lips. 

When Sulahn pulls back, she's smiling as well. Krem reluctantly lets her go to finish with their packs and saddling their mounts, heading over to harangue some of the younger members for packing haphazardly. Breakfast goes quickly, Bull appearing from his tent with chocolate sauce that he refuses to share, and they get underway with little fuss.

Sulahn likes riding on the Storm Coast. It's a rare rain-less day, less overcast than usual, and the sunlight peeks through the trees as steam rises from rocks and the trees. It's all rather mystical, like riding through a dream, and she directs her hart with her legs to reach over and hold Krem's hand. There's some advantages to traveling at the back of the pack- they can take their time together, only as fast as the people in front of them. Puff, Krem's dracolisk, huffs at the intrusion but doesn't try and bite her hart. 

“I love it here,” she admits as they crest a ridge. “The waves and the rocks, the birds and the trees. It's beautiful, even when everything's drenched and the waves are high enough to kill us.”

Krem smiles, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. “It is beautiful. Almost as much as you.”

Sulahn laughs, squeezing his hand. “Sap.”

“It's been said.”

It's strange, riding through the Storm Coast with just the Chargers. The Inquisitions banners and tents are gone, their presence on the coast erased from all but maps now. They pass places where she fought with Bull, where dragonlings came for them, where giants and bears and darkspawn once ruled her life. The abandoned ships on the coast are gone as well, sold off to fishermen in Ferelden's less inhospitable climes, and as their mounts climb up the slopes to the pass, she finds herself looking back. 

Krem signals Puff to stop, Sulahn's hart stopping as well. 

“Right down there,” she says, nodding to the shore. “Right there, we fought together for the first time. I might have met you at Haven, but I started to know you here. It's strange, seeing it given back entirely to nature.”

“Maybe,” Krem says, looking at the gray waves. “But you left your mark all the same, flags or not.”

“I did, didn't I?” Sulahn says quietly, and Krem squeezes her hand.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you'll go down in history as the savior of Thedas, beautiful.” His voice is gentle, kind. Just a bit teasing, enough to drag her from her funk. “Come on. It's behind us now, but the road's going on ahead.”

She smiles, bending to kiss his cheek, and they ride together into the pass.

Lunch is eaten on the go, jerked meat in the Dalish style with plenty of spice and some apples. The day passes quickly as they travel. That night, they build camp at a quiet place that's officially in the no-man's land between Orlais and Ferelden, out of the Storm Coast proper and onto milder shores. It's a pleasant little meadow, sturdy trees surrounding them and providing a windbreak. Gulls fly overhead, stealing what little remains of the daylight to scavenge what they can from the sandy beach. The sea grasses rustle and quaver in the wind, the sea rolling in softer waves from the crash on the Coast. The tents go up quickly, the fire is built, Grim starts cooking, and Bull gets roped into mediating a squabble between some of the new members.

Krem takes Sulahn's hand and together they walk a ways up the shoreline, away from their little clearing and up to a little overlook for some time alone. 

“I like this,” Sulahn says as they sit on the grass. It's short, scrubby stuff, clinging to the ground with determination. “It reminds me of home. Traveling place to place, always moving.”

“We'll take up residence in a house when we're in Val Royeaux signing contracts,” Krem says, wrapping his arm around her so that they can lean their heads together in quiet companionship. “And sometimes we winter on the border of Nevarra in cabins, where it stays a little more warm. Pretty sure the Chief never wants to so much as look at snow again after the Emprise.”

“I can't blame him,” Sulahn says, nuzzling into him to get comfortable. 

They watch the waves lap at the shore, the small dots of the Chargers walking back and forth on the beach below. It really is like home. They're missing the cheerful colors of the Aravel sails, and the roaming halla, but the attitude is the same. A place for the night, a moment to breathe before saddling up once again and carrying on. The tents are plain cloth, not colorful, and their motley assortment of mounts are far from pretty halla, but the look remains as Puff roams the campsite looking for hand outs, and the horses huddle together to sleep.

“I went from a nomadic life to living in a castle and then to being a nomad again,” Sulahn says, tucking her head under Krem's chin. He's sturdy and warm, out of his armor and into a comfortable pair of breeches and a quilted jerkin. “I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

“In a good way, I hope,” Krem murmurs, squeezing her in a hug. “Nice as that big bed was, you never did sleep too well in it.”

“I didn't,” she agrees. “I never could really get comfortable in it.”

She can feel him smile, the soft huff of laughter from his chest. “The dread Inquisitor, laid low by a feather bed.”

Sulahn can't help but laugh at that, turning her face into Krem's chest. “I'm Dalish as they get, I guess. Give me a nice bed of wildflowers over cotton and feathers any day. If you're not fighting the ground and winning, what's the point of sleep?”

Krem laughs, rubbing his hand over her arm. Together, they watch as the sun begins to sink over the horizon. 

“I missed watching the sun on the sea,” Sulahn says quietly. “I don't know that there's anything more beautiful.”

“I don't know,” Krem says, and Sulahn's already smiling as she knows where this is going. “I think you'll give it a run for its money.”

“You really are such a _terrible_ sap,” Sulahn says, pulling back, and they kiss as the sunset glows ruby red.

They walk back down to the camp before the sun has fully set, Krem peeling away to go and stop Puff from trying to pick a fight with Bull's massive war horse, Killer. Sulahn drops down onto a camp chair next to Rocky as he stirs the stew, and he gives her a quick grin. 

“Your ladyship.”

“Oh please,” she snorts, and he laughs as he dishes her stew. 

“Well, you can't be Boss forever,” he says with a grin. “Ladyship's a pretty good one as far as nicknames.”

Krem walks past, crisis averted, bending down to press a quick kiss to the top of her head. “Makes her sound like a boat, you can do better,” he says, and Bull laughs. 

“He's not wrong!”

Sulahn eats her dinner to gentle teasing, nicknames being thrown around for all their younger members, and the warm press of Krem at her side. The stars come out in all their splendor to the sound of easy songs and laughter, Dalish dragging Sulahn up for a jig as Hammerjaw plays his beat-up lute and Krem's perfect mezzo-soprano rings out in the air with a familiar tune. It's fast and easy and light as air, being with them, and by the time everyone packs up to sleep for the night she feels full in heart and body.

Krem wraps an arm around her waist as they walk to their tent, and they get undressed in easy silence. Bedrolls are slipped into, the lantern is put out, and slowly the voice around camp start to grow more and more quiet. Sulahn reaches over to take his hand, twining them together over their blankets. 

“Krem?”

He's half asleep, she can tell, but he turns to look at her with soft, gentle eyes. “Hmm?”

She smiles at him, at the strong lines of his face and the curve of his lashes, his hair mussed into disarray and his eyes so bright in the darkness. “I love you.”

His smile is brilliant, and her heart feels like it's swollen fit to burst as he says, “I love you, too.”

In the morning, they'll do the whole thing over again. They'll eat breakfast, and break down camp, and climb on their mounts and head off into the great wild world. There'll be laughing, and joking, and some small drama will break out and life will carry on regardless. There will be horseshoes to repair, saddles that need oiling, stitchwork to be done and food to be found. Day in, and day out, life will carry on as per usual until they find themselves in a fight or find a nice tavern. There'll be small vacations, and complicated math for bank accounts, letters and reports to write and training to do. 

A whole new world stretches out in front of her, and Sulahn smiles as she closes her eyes. 

Morning will come soon, and with it, a new day.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a commissioned piece for @nilesdaughter on tumblr, who's supported me for such a long time and who I consider an absolute gem of a human being. Please go take a look at her and her own work!
> 
> Feel free to say hi to me on tumblr as well at heronfem.


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